Numina
Hedge Magic Humans that aren't blessed with the innate talent of Mages, hermetic or otherwise, can still touch upon the world of magic through Sorcery also commonly referred to as Hedge magic. This sort of magic, as opposed to the dynamic magic of mages, is static and linear. A mystics culture and belief system help guide her practice of hedge magic. Lifestyle, ethical code, favored foci and methods of instruction determine the appearance and method of a hedge mage's power. A worker of Appalachian hoodoo magic might use very different gestures, foci, and special ingredients to work a healing magic than a medicine man or a member of the Arcanum society. The rituals might all result in healing, but the look, form, smell, and feel of the actual workings are very different. '''System: '''As opposed to Blood Sorcery rituals, the rituals of Hedge magic have individual casting times as well as each ritual presents with its own unique dice pool. Furthermore, a character can't purchase a level of Hedge magic without having his Occult skill on a level equal to the new level of Hedge Magic purchased. Most Hedge Magic costs nothing but time and reagents, but occasionally there will be a cost in Willpower or Health - This will be referred to as Personal Sacrifice. As such one personal sacrifice as a cost, refers to the character dealing either one point of damage to their health or willpower. This follows all the ordinary rules of damage and healing. A Sorcerer can choose to "outsource" the sacrifice and thus allowing someone else to pay the cost, this cost is always paid in Health. Such a cost can be paid by any willing or helpless target. Some rituals will have prerequisites, which means another ritual must be learned before a target can lean the ritual with the prerequisite. A good example are the Summoning rituals, all of which require the Binding Circle ritual. If not specified, a Ritual roll consists of Intelligence + Hedge magic. Unless specified the DC of a ritual is equal to it's level + 1. Fluf *Ingredients: *Process: *System: Rituals Level 1 '''Fore-telling''' This is the most basic form of Divination, this ritual allows the user to gain a general sense of a persons future, for good or bad. Results usually involve symbolic or cryptic answers with many possible interpretations. *Ingredients: A method of divination such as a Ouija board, tarot cards, coin flipping or similar yes/no methods. *Process:The sorcerer performs a quick ritual taking but three minutes, involving laying tarot, making use of the Ouija board or the like. During this telling of the future, the Sorcerer can answer questions of yes or no. Sample: "Will I be pregnant" - The Fortune-teller sees an image of a small coloured ball rolling over a day-lit wooden floor, an empty swing, swaying, from the branch of the oak tree in the background. All of these images come paired with faint laughter. *System: The character rolls Composure + Hedge Magic, two successes are enough for the ritual to produce some kind of positive or negative answer in the form of cryptic messages. This ritual can only "answer" yes or no questions. '''Soothing Touch''' This ritual allows the healer to soothe headaches, backaches and more. The ailment causing the pain doesn't go away, but the touch causes the pain to back off and granting the ailing an empowering reprieve from suffering. *Ingredients: A simple touch and a few choice words. *Process: This ritual takes all of one turn to perform as the caster simple lays a hand upon the victim of the pain, speaking a few words of magic or prayer, draining the pain away from the victim. *System: Each success rolled removes the pain from a victim for one hour. In combat this alleviates wound penalties or other penalties caused by pain for one round only, as the strain and stress of combat mixes badly with the magic of the Soothing Touch. '''Ritual of Wakening''' This ritual is the first step for a Theurgist to master the Via Necromantiae, with it the theurgist may command a recently deceased cadaver to awaken. The corpse will sit up and answer the Theurgists questions, to the best of its ability. * Ingredients: A single candle, which burns for the duration of the ritual. * Process: The caster speaks a quick incantation and lights the white candle. The candle burns supernaturally fast, warning the Theurgist about when her ritual has run its course. * System: A successful roll of Charisma + Hedge magic causes the corpse to sit up and answer any question, posed by the caster, to the best of its ability. The corpse remains animated for one minute, plus one minute per success margin. Every twenty-four hours the cadaver has been dead, adds an additional difficulty. A cadaver dead for more than a week, cannot be tasked to rise in this fashion. '''Ritual of Revelation''' This ritual causes nearby spirits to reveal themselves to the caster as well as any other participant of the ritual, this command is such that even those spirits already bound or possessing other bodies, such as demons, are also forced to reveal themselves. * Ingredients: A single silver mirror * Process: The caster and other participants chant the phrase of command, as they pass the mirror between them, staring into the depth of their own eyes. * System: A single successful Charisma + Hedge magic roll is enough to allow each participant of the ritual to see all spirits in the immediate area for a single minute plus one minute per success margin. Level 2 '''Dowsing''' This ritual enables a Diviner to find lost objects or people. This ritual can be of incredible use and Diviners with knowledge of it are often sought out to help in a variety of investigations. *Ingredients: A picture or thorough description of an object or some item of significance or something formerly of the body of the person he seeks a long with a Dowser. A Dowser is an object suspended from a silver chain. *Cost: One personal sacrifice per casting. *Process: The diviner should be familiar with the object or hold something significant to the individual he seeks, then he speaks a couple of choice words of incantations. As this is done the Dowser is to be held over a map, where it will circle until it points to the area inhabited by the person or object sought. If used closer to the proximity of the target of Dowsing, the Dowser will pull in the direction of the target like some sort of compass. Subsequent Divinations might have to be performed in the case of long-range dowsing. For instance one Dowsing may reveal the object or person to be within the country of England, then another to look within the City of London and for a third one to reveal it being within West minster. Once within a city neighborhood a local Dowsing can be performed. *System: The sorcerer must succeed on a roll of Intelligence + Hedge Magic against a DC of 2 for objects within a mile of the sorcerer, 3 within the limits of a city, 4 within a country/state or finally 5 for anywhere in the world. '''Binding Circle''' This ritual is often the first step one takes on the road to oblivion, it enables a sorcerer to create a 3 by 3 meters circle which traps demons and spirits inside its confines for a time. This ritual often leads would-be demonologists to believe that they hold power over such beings in the circle however, more often than not, their will isn't strong enough and such a being finds its way free. It isn't had to imagine how such beings react to being incarcerated against their will. This ritual must be learned once for Demons, once for Spirits, once for Fae and once for Ghosts each to affect them. * Ingredients: Chalk, your own blood and possibly some item of aversion to the being. Silver powder for a moon spirit, a crucifix for a demon and so on. * Cost: One personal sacrifice. * Process: A eldritch binding circle is drawn on the floor, ceiling or some other solid surface. Then the sacrifice of blood must be enacted while the ritualist speaks the arcane incantation. The item of aversion must hold some sort of prominent place as part of the circles design. All in all, creating a binding circle takes thirty minutes. * System: Three successes on a ritual roll of Manipulation + Hedge magic is all that's needed to craft the circle and prime it. The first time a creature, of the type it's supposed to bind, enters the circle both the creature and caster roll opposed Willpower checks, the caster adds his success margin to his roll. If the creature wins, they can break the circle, if the caster wins the creature is held bound inside for a duration equal to a day + one day for each success margin on the opposed check. Once bound a creature inside the circle cannot leave in anyway, nor can they affect the caster of the binding circle in any way. '''Ritual of Warding''' The Theurgist may ward a single room-sized area from ghostly intrusion, barring their ectoplasmic forms entry. * Ingredients: Human blood * Cost: One personal sacrifice * Process: The ritualist takes five minutes to draw sigils of warding in his own blood, around the area he seeks to protect. * System: Winning a ritual roll, Wits + Hedge magic, of DC 3 wards a single room against the influence of ghosts for one week. Ghosts cannot enter nor affect anyone inside with any of their powers. Should the sigils ever be broken, so is the protection. '''Spiritual Protection''' This ritual functions much like the ritual of warding, save it protects a single object against possession by a spirit or demon. Each protective sigil must be learned individually. * Ingredients: Human blood * Cost: One personal sacrifice * Process: The caster must draw a sigil of protection upon the item which he seeks to guard from spiritual possession. * System: Wits + Hedge magic DC 3 is the ritual roll required to enact this effect. Once won, the object is protected from spiritual habitation for a duration of one year or until the sigil is disturbed. Level 3 '''The Way of Conjuration''' This particular line of rituals enables the hedge mage to move objects about, from one place to another. They can pull rabbits our of hats, summon swords or other weapons to hand, and, at the highest level of skill, move a human or human-sized object without having to physically touch it. Any object or person conjured through this ritual, must be prepared in advance using a variety of different methods, usually this comes from some sort of ritual cleansing, runic inscription or the like. *Ingredients: Water infused with cleaning herbs or the blood of the caster. *Cost: One personal sacrifice upon conjuring the prepared object. *Process: The Caster first ritually prepares an object or person to be moved, this process takes 10 minutes and involves inscribing runes or sigils in the casters own blood or ritually bathing the item in cleansing water. *System: To conjure an object that has been previously prepared, requires no roll. All it requires is for the cost to be paid by the conjurer or a will/helpless sacrifice. To prepare an object for conjuration requires a roll of Dexterity + Hedge Magic with a DC equal to the Strength required to dead-lift an object, using the Feat of Strength table (p. 411). Once prepared an object can be conjured an amount of times equal to one plus the success margin. '''Augury''' This ritual allows the Diviner to determine the outcome of a particular futue even, such as the success or failure of a business venture, which army will win a particular battle, or what team will win the championship of some sport. *Ingredients: Tarot cards, rune-stones, bones, entrails of a chicken or some other method of divination. *Cost: One personal sacrifice *Process: The caster prepares and executes the ritual as outlined in whatever tradition he subscribes to, whatever that maybe the casting always takes ten minutes of uninterrupted divination. *System: Once cast the ritual reveals the likely outcome of a given event, however no such event can be dependent on only a few individuals. The events have to be off a scale that a single individual can't influence the outcome. Each success on the roll determines how accurate the prediction is, the Augury is roughly accurate to a point of 15% per success rolled. So 5 successes means the augury is 75% correct, this means the likelihood of it being true is 75%. Diviners know their predictions are whimsical and warn others to not heed them completely. '''Breath of Mercy''' This ritual allows a Healer, herbalist or alchemist to treat non-fatal-non-chronic diseases the treatable effects are all in the severity range of flu, migraines, infected wounds, pneumonia and the like. *Ingredients: A concoction of revitalizing herbs and the saliva of a dog and mistletoe harvested under a full moon. *Process: The caster prepares the concoction under the cover of a new moon, mixing the herbs and dog saliva as he chants over the brew which is to be stirred by mistletoe. The process of cooking takes thirty minutes time. *System: Four successes is enough to brew one batch of the Breath of Mercy, every two success margins makes for another batch of the concoction. Once consumed the minor ails of the victim begin to fade over the course of a week, subsequent consumption of the concoction doesn't speed up the process. A single batch of the Breath of Mercy keeps for a single month. '''Sands of Torpor''' Alchemists and Herbalists of some skill can easily fabricate this golden-like powder, the innate magic of the powder puts anyone to sleep for a good hour once the powder has been inhaled. This powder has shown to be of great value, as it has both civic and criminal uses. * Ingredients: Finger bone of an insomniac, fine sand and dried Valerian. * Process: The Valerian, finger bone and sand are all ground up together, then they stew in a solution of vitriol. Once the concoction has boiled all the impurities away, a fine golden powder is left at the bottom of the bowl. * System: Winning a ritual roll of a DC of 4, intelligence + Hedge magic, produces one dose of powder, a margin of 2 adds another dose. A single dose can keep for one month. If this powder is inhaled by a mortal, they must immediately win a stamina roll against a DC of the successes rolled during creation. If not, they fall asleep for a number of hours equal to 5 - the number of successes on the initial resistance roll. '''Litany of St. Raphael''' With this incantation or prayer, a healer can force the flesh of a body, that's been damaged in some fashion, to knit back together. * Ingredients: An herb, flower or other item that promotes growth and health. * Cost: Two personal sacrifices * Process: Ten minutes of prayer or chanting, clutching the item of regrowth, while being in constant physical contact with the patient. * System: Winning a ritual roll at a DC of 4 accelerates the healing of a given patient, all flesh knits together over the course of three days. If you beat the margin by 2 successes, this sort of healing will leave no scar tissue. As this ritual does not expel infection, a healing might need to apply some other sort of ritual to secure the health of his patient. '''Ritual of Communication''' The Theurgist may contact the ghosts of the departed. This ritual is different from the Ritual of waking, as it establishes an actual connection with the soul of person, rather than questioning the corpse. The Ghost also has its own agency in this conversation, so the truth is not guaranteed. This ritual simply facilitates a conversation between the living and the dead. * Ingredients: The ritualist must either possess an object of importance to the Ghost or conduct the ritual in a place haunted by the ghost itself. * Process: The caster will meditate on the item or the area connected to the ghost, continuously sending out a psychic call for the ghost. Should the departed soul chose to answer, it's voice becomes audible to the ritualist alone. * System: The caster must succeed on a Ritual roll of Resolve + Hedge magic at a DC of 4. On a success the caster is granted five minutes worth of conversation, plus an additional minute for each success margin. The ghost is compelled to speak to the ritualist through this ritual, though whether it speaks true or not is up to the ghost itself. '''Rite of Dismissal''' The Theurgist can, by employing this ritual, compel a spirit to return to the umbra or leave the body of being it possesses. This is not harmful to the spirit or the subject, but causes an immense amount of pain to the possessed body. * Ingredients: A bell, drum or similar instrument. * Cost: One personal sacrifice * Process: The caster will speak aloud an incantation or prayer of dismissal, all the while strikes the bell or other percussive instrument in a threatening fashion, letting the spirit know what awaits it if it disobeys. The ritual takes ten minutes. * System: The caster and spirit engages in a battle of Willpower against each other, the one to first reach 5 successes over the course of three rolls win. If the spirit wins it cannot be exercised for a year by the same character, if the caster wins the spirits is immediately expelled and barred from possessing the person or object again for another year. Level 4 '''Respite of the Chosen''' With this ritual a healer can mend broken bones, forcing them to spring back into the place and motivate the bone itself to mend. *Ingredients: The touch of the healer and a prayer to god or some arcane enchantment *Cost: Three personal sacrifices *Process: The healer spends thirty minutes in contact with his patient, chanting or praying. The dark side of this ritual is that it literally drains the pain and hurt from a victim and pouring that suffering into the healer himself. *System: It requires a total of five success on a roll of Intelligence + Hedge magic for the caster to banish this sort of bodily harm, however for the patient the ailment doesn't disappear immediately. Such healing takes time and over the course of a week their body is healed. Each margin of success decreases this time by a single day, to a minimum of three days. '''Ritual of Umbral Summoning''' The Theurgist can now summon spiritual entities such as nature spirits, elementals, djinn and the like. The summoned spirit are not under the theurges control but will not attack him as mystical components of the spell prevent it, nor can it leave. * Ingredients: Reagents of import to the spirit, a bronze bowl. * Cost: Three personal sacrifices * Process: The summoner must clearly mark a place for the spirit to appear, he'll then disassemble the reagent of importance to the spirit into the bronze bowl. This could be charcoal for a fire elemental, raw iron for a spirit of war and the like. * System: The Theurgist must win a roll of Charisma + Hedge magic at a DC of 5. The spirit called in this fashion is of a general persuasion and not a specific being, the spirit must remain in the vicinity of the caller for the duration of a scene or until it has answered three questions. Any further interaction relies on social rolls, sacrifices or other powers of the summoner. '''Ectoplasmic Expulsion ''' This rite is often confused with the famous Catholic exorcism, however while the exorcism is an abjuration any priest could be lucky to successfully conduct, the Ectoplasmic Expulsion requires extensive magical knowledge and has a much higher rate of success. * Ingredients: A symbol of religious importance or of spiritual abjuration and holy water or sage. * Cost: Two personal sacrifices * Process: The ritual takes ten minutes as the ritualist consecrates the person or area suffering the haunt of a ghost, through the spread of holy water or the burning of sage all the while chanting a prayer or reciting eldritch incantations. * System: This ritual is an extended roll of Charisma + Hedge magic vs the Ghosts Willpower, the first to achieve ten successes wins the roll. Should the Theurgist win, the ghost is banished back to the shadowlands and barred from interfering with the skinlands for a period of one year. Moreover the Ghost can never appear in the house from which it was banished or possess a body from which it was abjured. Should the Ghost win, the Theurgist can't attempt to banish it again for a week. Level 5 '''Vision Quest''' This is the most advanced form of Hedge Magic Divination, it involves seeking for and receiving a detailed vision of the future, either concerning the diviner or someone else of the diviners choice. The experience may not present itself in a linear fashion; details of the vision may not appear in order, enabling the caster to misinterpret parts of the vision. *Ingredients: Psychedelic Herbs, Hard drugs or both. *Process: The caster of this ritual must attempt to achieve a state of altered consciousness, this is done through fasting, sweat lodges or shamnaic vision treks coupled with copious amounts of mind altering herbs and drugs; all the while he chants for the vision he seeks. This process takes anywhere from One day to a week, depending upon the skill of the Diviner. *System: The caster must roll Stamina + Hedge Magic at a DC of 6 and the ritual takes one week to perform. Each success margin after 6 reduces the time it takes by one day, this ritual will always take at least one day to perform. Upon completion of the ritual the caster collapses as his mind is transported to another realm, wherein it receives a vision with regards to the person or event requested. This vision is similar to previous divinations in that it's delivered in cryptic images and impressions, however it's a lot easier to interpret and more direct than previous rituals. '''Spiritus Binding''' The Sorcerer can now force spirits into his service, this is a truly dangerous act as such beings tend to react rather resentfully towards their would-be masters once their period of servitude is over. As the ritual takes time to enact, the smart Spirit binder erects a Binding Circle before summoning the spirit to keep the creature contained. * Ingredients: A Silver chain, Bronze bowl, an animal sacrifice, candles or incense. * Cost: Three personal sacrifices * Process: The binder initiates the ritual with a sinister chant, outlining the service of the spirit in the eldritch tongue. As he speaks he lights the candles or incense in a circle around the spirit he seeks to bind. Then at the height of his ritual he will slit the throat of his animal sacrifice, anointing the silver chain in the blood of the sacrifice. This links the spirit to the chain, that now symbolizes the spirits metaphorical indentured servitude. This ritual takes half an hour to enact. Some binders might use different implements to contain a spirit such as iron flasks, brass lamps or the like. * System: This ritual is another extended roll, pitting the Theurgists Manipulation + Hedge magic against the spirits willpower. The Theurgist gains a bonus to this roll equal to the success margin achieved on a binding circle, should the spirit have been summoned into such a circle. If he fails, the spirit is immediately freed of any previous bonds and banished back to the umbra. The first to achieve 10 successes, win the extended roll. Once bound a spirit remains in the servitude of the Binder until the chain binding it, can be broken. A spirit bound by a Sorcerer must follow his orders to the letter and cannot act against him directly. Many a binder enters into a contract of release, stipulating requirements for the spirit to fulfill to regain its freedom, thus ensuring some semblance of loyalty. '''Way of Healing''' Through a great deal of effort, a Healer with this ritual can cure the most serious diseases, including AIDS, cancer, heart disease and other fatal and hopeless ailments. * Ingredients: A relic of some saint or an item of equal grandeur. * Cost: Five personal sacrifices * Process: Clutching the relic in his hand, the healer sits by the patient with his other hand on the area of the body that's attacked with the affliction. Here he chants or prays for a full day. * System: Six successes are needed for a healer to cure anyone of the above-mentioned ailments and similar diseases and disorders. It takes a week for the affliction to fade completely. After every six hour period the healer must win a DC 2 Willpower roll to keep going. Psychic Powers Faith